Abstract Expressions – Part 2/3

Hello and welcome to part 2 of a 3 part series presenting an old work of mine: Abstract Expressions. If you missed part 1 you can find it here: Abstract Expressions – Part 1/3
Basically this is a story about emotions, obsession and two people written as extended prose. Some of it won’t make sense, some of it may hold a mirror up to emotions you’ve felt before and some of it may help you work through some things that you have yet to do. Because for me, that is what this is all about, there is no point in repeating the same mistakes over and over again every time we do something.

Again if you want to reach out and talk about any of the work you read here please do, you can comment below or email me but for now please enjoy Part 2 of Abstract Expressions.

Abstract Expressions

8.Histories

Since a young age the man had read romance novels, not the likes of Mills and Boons, romance novels that showed him what the world could be. Showed him worlds where characters thoughts and feelings about something were as important as there actions. Where the dreams of a person could have true import to their lives. Sometimes he lived in this world, where an idea had power with a word and sometimes he lived in a world where he was dragged down by the day to day doldrums, the slow pace of hours streaming by with nothing but his thoughts to keep him company. This was his downfall.

He wanted great love, he wanted something that made him feel a wholeness couldn’t be achieve on his own. He wanted someone that was better for being around him. Someone who shared a passion and energy for the possibilities that life offered. He thought he had found that, what he couldn’t work out was how to keep it. Like soap bubbles, happiness and contentment would often slip through his fingers.

She wanted someone that loved her for her. Someone that complimented her in the very fiber of her being. She wanted someone who made sense to her friends, she didn’t want to defend her reasons for love. Someone who being around made every little daily action more enjoyable. Brushing her teeth became fun, preparing a meal no longer became a chore. That was what she truly wanted.

9.Wheels Turning

Things moved along as they are wont to do, and they were happy. They thought they were happy. Maybe they were happy. They shared the things that new loves shared, long mornings in bed, time, secrets, promises, futures and past memories, dreams and a physical intimacy that is completely unique to the two of them.

10.Inspiration

She became his muse, though he would never let her know this secret. It was his. She was his, something that he kept deep down within and only let out in increments of passion and creativity. He would never share how he really felt with the world. She was his secret.

His body had once been a magnificent specimen; she had seen this in the beginning. Slowly over the course of things his muscles atrophied and melted into each other. He was no longer the lithe, strong creature from another plane. He had become mortal. He admitted that to himself and it hurt, seeing the way it made her feel hurt tenfold.

11.Strange Thoughts for a Summer Day

At times he would go into this awful black moods where he became like a cloud over the whole world. A maelstrom that didn’t destroy, it hovered like a blanket slowly crushing all that is good from the world.

Sometimes there was anger there, at one thing or another. Mostly though it was that nothing pleased him, like there was an emotional stockpile that crept up and needed sorting and cataloguing. Nothing could abate him but time, and it was time that he took. During these times he didn’t mean to hurt her, there was just no way that he could express how he hated the world on those days, those days when it seemed that nothing could satisfy him.

He knew that he could be bad, he could be all of the things that forced him into one of those moods. When he realized that he would begin to dislike himself for being himself. It was a cycle that needed to play itself out. She stayed with him through these and while he couldn’t express it at the time he was grateful in the fullness of time for her patience. Sadly he knew that was his fate, as we all do, we know deep down from when we are very young exactly how we will be forever. His was a world where he knew that he would forever be one to look from the outside, to ponder and process at the inner workings of things. He would never be able to be completely within a situation because there was already a part of him that outside of him, looking down and weighing his reactions to what was going on. Yes, he knew his fate. This is something that wouldn’t change.

12.Cloak and Dagger

He would change his outside, his clothes, his hair, his friends, his job, he moved. Always though these were just masks that would eventually fall away or perhaps he became the mask. He would catch up to himself.

When he and her where together, after one of his moods, ideas would come flooding back to them momentarily of how things could be better. The ideas wouldn’t stick, fleeting and intangible they found it difficult to express to each other how things could have been, or should have been, or sometimes were. This was the trouble, they were so caught up with trying to define things, or not that sometimes they forgot to get caught up in the beauty of what they had.

13.Doldrums

It was a rainy day, they were lying in bed and looking at the window, droplets chasing each other down the glass. There was an atmosphere in the room, the walls were grey and there was nothing to entertain them, nothing good on TV or the radio, neither of which they used in any case. This was a time that they shared where nothing was in either of their heads, not a thought.

14.Realizations of Happiness

They both knew that there was a place they could where their love would be properly realized. This was a place where they were not. They couldn’t get there either; there were parts of each of their lives that couldn’t just be left behind. Things that kept them, obligations to other people that they couldn’t release. Sometimes they wished they could just leave those things and go, slow things down so that it seemed that they were moving as though under an editor’s vision. Frame by frame in minute detail, as though the next five minutes could last twenty years. They would drink and time would be forgotten, just each other’s company and that was all there was.

15.Travels to a Distant Land

They drove up into the country one long weekend. The land travelled behind them, the kilometers flowing past and not making sense any more. What sense was to be made of travelling though, it was just land put behind them. The destination was not important either, all that mattered was that they went together. Part way through they stopped and ran out into a field, they drank and kissed for a while.

16.The Fawn

They arrived and took off into the forest, he wished they could get lost in here. The trees like arms stretching up to the sky, leaving behind the petty concerns of the day to day. Her face shining in the light under the canopy, her hair flowing in the wind. This was where they could go, spend as much time as they wanted. This was where he was truly happy. This was where she was truly happy. There was no longer any weight on either of them. Just the sound and the smell and the touch of the world around them mixed into their shared senses.

17.Reality and Questions of Existence

They had lost this and returned to their lives, this was a brief sojourn from the harshness of reality. The coffee, the clack of keys on the computer, memo after memo going out into the ether. They went back to being caught up in the minutiae, sharing these with each other than sharing what really mattered. What was it that really mattered though?

There was an abstractness to it all, their love, the day to day grind, the general ins and outs of what people do forever and always. In the moment it seems so clear and purposeful, as though this is what each person should be doing, yet, when it is looked back on these things swirl into crush of jagged lines and whirls. Memories, gas like of a coffee shop encounter, an emotion, a sales lady, the religion of the greater world. Insects and medication, typography and communication all becoming a part of the forgotten tapestry of a history. Thousands of lives never remembered and a thousand more. What is important about one person or two? What can they do that is special other than find happiness.

18.Melodies and Positive Aquatic Intrusions

He would listen to music and draw themes out, he would try to tell her about them, sometimes he thought he had found the secret to the universe but he had trouble expressing it. A light, shined inside both of them, sometimes it burned brightly sometimes faintly, sometimes it joined in a meeting and became a raging fire.

There was a large, water born mammal that saw this within them.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

See I make bad art too.

Thanks again for reading. The next and final part of Abstract Expressions will be available on Tuesday 24th April 2018. The final instalment wraps this all up in a neat little bow. Stay tuned.

If you’re interested in supporting the making of more soppy art like this or some of my new work: Lost Tales you can join my Patreon over at patreon.com/travisdevries where you can subscribe to give me a little bit of money each month. With that money I use it to create new work and you also get some interesting goodies deliver to you each month. There are T-shirts, limited edition prints, and plenty of secret extras available. Alternatively you can buy one of my original print T’s from this website right in the store, all of the profit from T-shirt sales goes back into me making new art which is great!

The other way you can help support me for free is by liking, sharing or subscribing to this website or on social media. Every little bit helps.